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Fraser Institute School Report Card

The Fraser Institute recently published their yearly Report Card which ranks elementary and secondary schools in Ontario using EQAO results. Two things should be considered when looking at the school rankings.

First, malady the EQAO results alone should not be used to rank the quality of a school. They do not capture the qualities of each school that give rise to a high or low quantitative score. As such, the EQAO results are only one source which the TDSB considers in its planning process. Other data sources include demographic trends, the student and parent census and informal assessments. Where do the EQAO results take into account a school’s extracurricular activities such as robotics or music programs?

Second, EQAO results do not reflect the quality of your child’s education. EQAO results are excluded from your child’s Ontario School Record and do not count towards their grades. Aside from passing the Grade 10 Literacy Test required to graduate, EQAO results are not considered in post-secondary education admissions. If you want to understand the quality of your child’s education, speak to their teacher who can discuss the EQAO results in the context of your child’s classroom grades and behavior.

EQAO results can be a useful tool to shape TDSB priorities. Indeed, the EQAO was designed to ensure accountability of the public education system. Last fall, for example, the TDSB introduced the Kindergarten to Grade 12 Mathematics Strategy to combat a trend of declining mathematic scores.

Nonetheless, the EQAO is but a quantitative snapshot of our students and our schools. Just as utilization rates do not reveal what a school means for its community and report cards do not fully encapsulate how a child’s success is in the classroom, EQAO results are a limited tool to understand school achievement.

If you want more information about a school, call the Principal to arrange a tour, sign up for their newsletters to see what’s going on at the school, checkout the school’s website, talk to other parents, talk to community members, and talk to your kids about their school.

EQAO results are one very small piece of a very large pie that is your child’s educational experience.